The World's Common Tater

I have a very large family. Each of my parents had several siblings and most of those siblings had multiple kids. I would not even get close to the right answer if I tried to count how many cousins I have.

When I was a kid, I saw some of the family on a relatively regular basis. Most of my dad’s family was local and we would see each other at my grandmother’s farm. We would occasionally go to Louisville to see my other grandmother and some of my mom’s siblings.

Eventually, as I got older that all changed. We started seeing family less often. I went to college and saw family even less. I moved to Maryland and now I only see two of my siblings, their kids, another nephew, and my MIL.

I now only see the rest of the family at funerals and I don’t travel in for most of the funerals.

My Aunt Patsy died yesterday. The last time I saw her was at my mom’s funeral. I saw her at my mom’s surprise 7th birthday party. The time before that was at my grandmother’s funeral. It’s the same for all of my mom’s siblings. We’ve become the family that only sees each other at funerals. I won’t make it to this one so that’s one less opportunity to see family.

It always sucks living 600 miles away from family. It sucks even more at times like this when you are reminded how removed you are from family.